Guided by Principles,
Adapted to Context
The best design process is the one that adapts to the team and the problem at hand.
Discover
Cross-Functional Discovery – Engage product management, sales engineers, channel partners, and sales reps to capture diverse perspectives and surface hidden requirements.
Define & Validate the Core Problem – Clarify the challenge we believe we’re solving, then apply techniques like the 5 Whys to uncover root causes and confirm it’s the true problem.
Align on Scope & Timeline – Establish shared expectations for goals, key deliverables, and critical milestones.
Analyze Insights & Context – Review all relevant qualitative and quantitative data to ground decisions in evidence.
Define
Synthesize Insights & Desired Outcomes – Distill key pain points and target outcomes, ensuring they align with overall business objectives and user needs.
Map & Validate Task Flows – Create detailed task flows and review with stakeholders to confirm accuracy and feasibility.
Align on Feature Scope – Collaborate with the team to agree on priorities, constraints, and success criteria.
Set the Design Approach – Determine whether the solution requires a tactical quick win or a conceptual long-term strategy.
Design
Prototype and Iterate – Build and refine prototypes for immediate enhancements, inviting regular feedback from key stakeholders to guide decisions and surface new opportunities for innovation.
Design for Reuse – Identify components that can be modularized and added to the design system, enabling cross-team reuse and faster delivery while maintaining consistency.
Deliver
Prepare Engineering-Ready Assets – Produce finalized Figma screens with clear annotations detailing behaviors, interactions, and responsive states.
Communicate the Experience – Provide clickable prototypes and concise video walkthroughs to illustrate key flows and design intent.
Support Implementation & QA – Partner with engineering throughout handoff and testing to ensure the built product faithfully reflects the intended user experience.
Reflection
Post-Project Retrospectives – Facilitate team debriefs to identify successes, pain points, and opportunities for improvement.
User & Stakeholder Feedback Loops – Gather feedback from customers, partners, and cross-functional teams to validate outcomes and uncover hidden insights.
Metrics Review & Analysis – Assess KPIs (usability, adoption, NPS, ROI) to measure impact and guide next steps.
Knowledge Sharing – Document key learnings and best practices in design system wikis or internal showcases to scale insights across teams.
Process Optimization – Adjust workflows, tools, and collaboration methods based on lessons learned to improve efficiency and creativity.
Personal Reflection & Growth – Encourage individual designers to self-evaluate, set development goals, and share reflections during 1:1s or team sessions.
